These guts bang on about western heritage, and then invite the wrath of Apollo Smintheus the first chance they get.

The Harm from Hormuz Why we should still fear a global slump from Trump’s Iran debacle

Excellent article from Paul Krugman on why most analysts are seriously underestimating the likely economic impact of the Iran War.

The tl;dr (but do read it) summary: it's not just the price rises, it's the commodity shortages too in stuff we need.

paulkrugman.substack.com/p/the-harm-f...

Cuture warriors defend western civilization by banning colleges from teaching . . . er . . . Plato and Shakespeare.

OMFG I had to go and check that this ACTUALLY happened.

Since when does the BBC ever do chyrons with a political party's branding, rather than their own? Not to mention this is during a pre-election campaign purdah.

(h/t @iainsol.bsky.social)

Reminded of Miliband's best line

National Security Vetting privacy notice Privacy notice for processing personal data during National Security Vetting (NSV).

But i can also imagine that two sets of lawyers 'is there legal risk if i disclose x?' vs 'is it legally possible i be told about x?' could come to a different conclusion... www.gov.uk/government/p...

Electric car sales soar 51% in mainland Europe as Iran war drives up fuel prices Data shows 224,000 new EVs were registered in March, with Norway leading way in terms of switching

Iran war petrol prices accelerate EV sales - up 51% in March across Europe.

www.theguardian.com/environment/...

‘We wasted a lot of lives’: CIA spymaster’s caution over past Iran intervention resurfaces from beyond the grave A documentary about Peter Sichel – the ‘Jewish James Bond’, whose wine portfolio boasted Blue Nun – includes striking mea culpas about the cost and efficacy of US involvement in the Middle East

‘We wasted a lot of lives’: CIA spymaster’s caution over past Iran intervention resurfaces from beyond the grave

Not sure its wise to have a display of righteous fury with civil servants over what is fundamentally a Labour Party mess.

Publish the Peter Mandelson files Revelations about the disgraced Lord Peter Mandelson’s relationship with convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein have rocked Britain. Recent reporting has revealed that Mandelson did not receive approva...

I’ve signed this calling for the full Mandelson files, including vetting documents, to be published. Parliament and the public need the full facts, not partial disclosure.

Sign here:
you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/pu...

A plausible explanation given the stated claims, if those claims are correct.

The closest parallel might actually be the one between Starmer's position and Wilson's.

Bombing to win Intelligence and airpower from Vietnam to Iran

Latest free newsletter: intelligencehistory.substack.com/p/bombing-to...

One counter-argument is that AI plagiarism will magnify the impact of those who write independently. But perhaps AI boosters expect the feedback loop to out-compete human input.

The significant year on year fall on boat arrivals is broadly unreported by BBC or other media. It has less to do with imminent government changes currently going through than a fall in "push factors" that is Europe-wide

Yeah fundamentally the "We Need Mandy To Manage Trump" was an excuse because McSweeney wanted to get Mandelson a big job because he was indebted to him/wanted to impress him. This rot is of Labour's own making.

The core problem is the appointment. They wanted Mandelson, the system gave them Mandelson. The system worked as it is meant to. The problem is the original sin - the decision (the desire) to appoint Mandelson.

This was published LAST SEPTEMBER. Bit surprising?

"... MI6 failed to clear the Labour peer largely because of concerns over his business links to China. However, there were also worries that his past links to the disgraced financier and convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein “would compromise him”."

Is the best defence of Starmer that a whole committee of MPs was told by Robbins that the security vetting was "conducted to the usual standard", and none of them thought to ask: just to check, he did pass, right?

The statistical tie between Lab-Lib-Grn supporters here on rejoining the EU is almost certainly partly to do with the homogenisation of left bloc voters, but it is also very interesting that the 'Lexit' contingent of voters has seemingly dried up.

They were a small but influential bloc in 2016.

I can kind of see how every step in the Mandelson mess could arise. You want a firewall between ministers and the vetting process, but you also don't want security services to have an absolute veto, so you end up with Perm Sec on both sides of the firewall, a very British & question-begging solution

I mean look, a Labour government *cannot* cut welfare spending to increase defence spending. It’s just silly to pretend it can.
And more generally: “cut social spending to rearm” is just awful advice across the EU. Is Europe more or less secure if populists win elections?

This is not how a public servant talks in a democracy. This is how a dictator’s henchman talks.

Harvard Asks Donors to Endow $10 Million Professorships for ‘Viewpoint Diversity’ Initiative | News | The Harvard Crimson Harvard is quietly asking donors for $10 million gifts to establish new endowed professorships in a sweeping bid to reshape its faculty under the banner of “viewpoint diversity,” according to two peop...

The irony of this initiative is that Harvard’s Department of Government was the academic hub of the first generation of neoconservatives and Harvey Mansfield alone has probably produced more conservative undergrad and grad students than all Marxist faculty at Harvard combined.

"The paid Facebook ad, the trucker-convoy framing, the infrastructure-obstruction model, the international amplifier pipeline. These are not neutral tools the left can pick up and use better. They are a specific political technology developed over the last 2 years by a specific organising tendency."

The right to protest isn’t a gift from government. It’s a democratic principle, hard-won and easily lost. Last night the government tried to smuggle through a “cumulative disruption” power that would let police ban protests simply because other people had protested in the same area before. (1/5)

Daniel Trilling: How centrists made the far right respectable The journalist and author on how the establishment mainstreamed Reform UK

It's @prospectmagazine.co.uk pod day, and this week @ellenhalliday.bsky.social and I spoke with
@trillingual.bsky.social about his excellent new book, which is all about how the British establishment made the far right respectable www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/podcasts/pro...

BBC News leading all its bulletins on demands by former Government advisor Lord Robertson for more defence spending, without at any point mentioning his current paid senior role for US defence lobbyists

As I noted yesterday, if Labour had not lost so many votes to the Greens and Lib Dems they would be AHEAD of Reform in the polling and the narrative would look extremely different. I also suspect May will be Reform's ultimate peak in electoral success. But will Labour now be the beneficiaries?

The Brexit delusion is dead – so now Keir Starmer doesn’t need to pretend any more | Rafael Behr To rebuild relations with Europe in a dangerous world, the prime minister needs to win big arguments, not hide behind outdated red lines, says Guardian columnist Rafael Behr

This is right, but I'd go further: winning the domestic argument on the free movement of people is what's needed to unlock anything further than the reset. That means Starmer has to repudiate many of his own arguments on migration.
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...